The Chocolate Chip Cookie Caper

The Chocolate Chip Cookie Caper

D. A. Ratliff

As tales go, this one will not likely remain a memory for anyone other than me and my friends, my dog Charlie and the vet, my sister, our parents, the neighbors, and the police and fire department of Timber Lane, LA. It all started innocently enough, but then it all went wrong.

Let me start this tale a bit earlier in the afternoon. My sister Kate is a high school junior and a pain in the… well, I’m not supposed to say that word, but you know. She excels at everything—an ‘A” student, always the lead in the school plays, plays clarinet in the band, and is the newly elected vice president of the student body. For a sister, she has proven quite annoying. But she bakes tasty chocolate chip cookies, so I forgive her—somewhat.

Tomorrow, there is a high school band concert at the city park and a bake sale fundraiser for a band trip to New York City for the Macy’s Parade on Thanksgiving, two months away. Kate decided to make fifteen dozen cookies for the sale. With Mom’s help, she spent all afternoon making the cookies, rolling the dough into little balls, and then refrigerating them on those flat pans. I overheard her tell Mom that she’d bake them tomorrow at the park’s rec center kitchen, luring people with the aroma of freshly baked cookies so they would buy more.

No amount of begging, and my friend Bryce and I did a lot of begging, convinced her to bake some for us. She gave Dad the last spoonful of cookie dough in front of us to prove how mean she was. What did Dad do? Share? No, he grinned and left the room, licking the wooden spoonful of chocolate chip dough. He’s mean too.

Having given up on the cookies, Bryce and I headed out to play baseball. We had to be home by five because Mom, Dad, and Kate were going to some fancy awards dinner with Bryce’s parents. His brother, Lance, and Kate won some awards for being smart, but we didn’t want to go. We thought they’d let us stay at my house or his, but Mom said, no, you’re too young to stay by yourself. We’re eleven years old and old enough to be by ourselves. Parents.

Our regular babysitter, Mrs. Montgomery, who lived two houses down, was out of town, so my other friend Timmy’s sister, Peggy, who was home for the weekend from college, said she would watch us. His parents were out of town. At six-thirty, I walked to Bryce’s house, and together we headed to Timmy’s house to serve out our sentence.

Peggy turned out to be cool. She met us at the door wearing enormous headphones and motioned for us to follow her to the den, where Timmy was playing a video game. She gave us chips and sodas and told us to have fun. Then she sprawled in one of the chairs, texting on her phone, ignoring us.

We played until the doorbell rang, and Peggy handed Timmy five dollars and told him to answer the door. She had ordered two large pizzas. Pizza. I love pizza, so this was turning out to be a good night. So far.

Gorged on pizza, we continued to play our favorite superhero video game, and then the evening changed. Bryce made one comment, and well, that started the sequence of events.

“You know what I want right now?”

Timmy answered as he took out a villain on the flatscreen. “What?”

“One of those chocolate chip cookies Kate made this afternoon.”

“Danny, you had chocolate chip cookies and didn’t bring me one?

I threw the big hammer at another villain. “Nope, because she wouldn’t let us have any. Only made ‘em and then put the dough in the refrigerator. Going to bake them tomorrow at the band concert.”

“There’s cookies ready to be baked at your house?” Timmy was getting excited.

I answered. “Yeah, but I don’t know how to bake them.”

Timmy grinned. “I do. I bake all the time with Mom.”

Bryce looked at me. “Then let’s go.”

“What about her?” I pointed to Peggy.

We’ll tell her we’re going to the garage to play foosball.”

I nodded. “Let’s do this.” We had a plan, and drooling commenced.

Timmy told his sister, who barely moved an earphone from her head. She nodded, and we headed to the garage and out the door to the backyard. We snuck around the house, ducking below the windows just in case she moved, made it to the sidewalk, and ran toward my house.

My mom makes me keep a house key on a chain around my neck, so getting in wasn’t an issue. My dog, Charlie, barked like he’d never seen us before but soon calmed down. I punched in the code to the alarm system, and we rushed to the kitchen.

Timmy was in charge since he had experience. He stood before the stove, and I could tell he was confused. He turned to us. “This is a gas stove.”

“Yeah, it is. Mom turns the knob to where the clicks sound, and it starts.”

He tried it, and it worked as flames appeared on the burner. “Now, let me try the oven.”

Timmy fiddled with the knobs, and we heard a swoosh. Success!

Bryce said. “Now what?”

We looked at each other. “I’ll get the cookies out of the refrigerator.”

When I opened the door, I found two shelves crammed with silver trays. They looked wobbly, but I pulled the top tray down and sat it on the counter. We stared at it for a second. Even Charlie jumped up, paws on the kitchen island, and stared.

I looked at Timmy. “Do you know what to do?”

His voice shook as he answered. “I don’t know what the temperature is supposed to be.”

We pondered that for a moment until Bryce held up his phone. “Google.”

A search told us 375° for ten minutes. Timmy set the oven and started to put the cookies in. I stopped him. “That shows 250°. I think we need to wait.”

We waited, and when the stove dinged, we all jumped and yelled, scaring Charlie, who began to bark furiously. Timmy calmed down. “I got this.” He put the cookies in the oven and looked at his phone. “Ten minutes.”

Ten minutes later, just as Timmy took the cookies out of the oven, there was a furious pounding on the front door. We froze as we heard someone yell, “Police! Open the door.”

We looked at each other in total panic, frozen to the spot. They caught us. We were in so much trouble. The pounding got louder.

Timmy slammed the tray onto the stovetop, and the bulky potholders he was wearing caught on a burner knob, and a burner flamed up, catching the potholder on fire. He knocked the tray of cookies onto the floor and ran screaming out the back door into the yard, where he flung the burning potholder off his hand. It flew directly into the pile of leaves my dad had raked that morning.

The huge pile of dry leaves caught on fire so fast and flamed up so high that it caught the dry autumn leaves in the big oak tree on fire. The sky lit up like fireworks.

Bryce followed Timmy outside, and I did after I thought to turn off the burner, and when I ran down the stairs, I noticed a person running toward me. I slammed into a police officer and a massive police officer he was.

“Okay, son. What’s going on here?”

The flames from the burning leaves caught my attention, and I barely heard a cop calling for the fire department. The cop who was holding onto my arm repeated his question.

I looked at Timmy and Bryce, who stood still, eyes wide. We were in trouble. I stood straighter and answered. “I’m Danny, I live here, and this is my friends Timmy and Bryce, and we are baking cookies.”

The police officers made us sit on the grass across the yard from the inferno blazing in my backyard. Charlie ran out of the house when a cop went inside to check the house. Excited, Charlie wanted to help with the hoses when the fire department arrived, and one of the cops brought him to me.

Although it felt like an eternity, my parents, Bryce’s parents, Kate, and Lance arrived about twenty minutes later. From the looks on their faces, I was pretty sure they had grounded us for life.

One of the officers told my parents why they were there. “We got a call about prowlers in your yard and lights on in the back of the house. Your neighbor said she had seen you all leave. Then after seeing someone sneak into the backyard, she heard the dog bark but no alarm. We arrived, knocked on the front door, heard yelling, and came into the backyard and found the leaves and the tree on fire.”

My Dad looked at me. “Want to tell us why you were here and not at Timmy’s?”

“We were at Timmy’s, but Bryce mentioned the cookies, and we were hungry, so we decided to come here and bake cookies.

Kate squealed. “You ate some of my cookies for the bake sale? Mom….” She turned to Mom, who hugged her. Rats. I knew that grounded would be the best I could hope for now.

Dan continued. “How did the fire start?”

“Timmy was getting the cookies out of the oven when the police banged on the door. We got scared. He tossed the pan and accidentally caught a burner knob with the potholder, and the burner came on and caught the potholder on fire.” I took a breath. “He ran outside and threw the glove, and it landed in the pile of leave and whoosh.” I made this gesture with my hands like a big explosion. That did not make my dad happy.

“You boys, stay here.”

Lance and Kate followed my parents to talk to the firefighters and police before they cleared the scene. Bryce’s parents left, and Lance volunteered to walk Timmy home. Mom, Dad, Kate, and I went into the house to find Charlie standing over an empty pan lying on the floor. My mom whirled toward me.

“Daniel, did you boys eat any of these cookies?”

I could only shake my head no, far too scared to speak.

She looked at my dad. “Get the car. We have to take him to the emergency vet. He just ate at least fifteen cookies with chocolate in them.”

We got home around midnight with a groggy dog who just had his stomach pumped. My family was not happy with me. I wasn’t either.

Sunday morning, before church, my parents announced my punishment. I could attend only important school functions for a month and other activities if my parents approved. My friends and I had to pay the fundraiser for the cookies Charlie ate out of our allowances, and I had to pay a part of Charlie’s vet bill. On top of that, Bryce, Timmy, and I had to help Kate with the cookie baking at the fair, but we couldn’t have any cookies.

Can I tell you the torture it was to be around all those hot cookies and not get to eat any of them? Kate preened at our misfortune as she remained ticked that we let Charlie get into the cookies. I was upset about that the most. So, we put cookies in and out of the ovens, boxed them up, and couldn’t taste a crumb.

After the bake sale ended, my buds and I sat at a picnic table dejected. All that, and we never got to taste a cookie. That’s when my mom walked up, holding a plate covered with a napkin.

“You three made a bad choice last night, but I think you deserve at least this for helping this afternoon.” She handed me the plate and walked away.

Bryce grimaced. “Probably liver or something.”

I lifted the napkin, and we gasped as one when we saw three perfectly baked chocolate chip cookies. We each grabbed a cookie and ate in silence.

A chocolate chip cookie was worth the price.